The hospitality industry is not having it easy as the rising cost of living continues to cut deep into the punters’ pockets, but if the bar at Holywood Golf Club near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ever were going to run dry, it surely had to be Sunday.
On the far side of the Atlantic, the club’s most famous member, Rory McIlroy, was sharing the lead in the Memorial Tournament. On the home side, Holywood’s newest star, 20-year-old DP World Tour rookie Tom McKibbin, also was tied at the top, in his case at the Porsche European Open at Green Eagle Golf Course near Hamburg, Germany.
McKibbon, making just his 26th start on the DP World Tour, with a previous best of T10 in last year’s ISPS Handa World Invitational in his home country, conceded that he had started the fourth round with some nerves. He defied them to reach the turn in 3-under 32 to assume solo leadership.
An errant drive at the par-5 11th prompted a dropped shot, and another came just two holes later, but he was not to be denied. McKibbon made birdies at the 15th and 18th, both par-5s, to complete a 3-under 70 for a 9-under 283 total and two-shot victory over France’s Julien Guerrier and Germans Marcel Siem and Maximilian Kieffer.
McKibbin hit a 200-yard approach at the last, flirting with a tree in front of him, in an apparent daring flourish, but McKibbin insisted otherwise. “It probably looked really good on camera,” he said of a shot that settled 7 feet from the flag. “But it was an easier shot than laying up and playing over the water.
“I always thought I was good enough to win, and now I’ve proved it.”
McKibbin also has ensured that comparisons with his fellow Holywood member will rumble on.
In truth, McKibbin entered the paid ranks with an amateur career lacking the many wins and achievements that McIlroy had accumulated, but in terms of ticking off a professional win, he has bested his elder in manner and speed.
McIlroy twice endured playoff defeat – at the unlikely hands of Jean-François Lucquin in the 2008 European Masters and Lin Wen-Tang at the 2009 Hong Kong Open – before finally landing his first DP World Tour win in his 46th start early in his second full season.
Matt Cooper